“We need to keep the doors locked now, but please come in.” A friendly member of a local synagogue welcomed me with these words over a year ago as I arrived to attend a weekly bridge class, shortly after the dramatic increase of violence at synagogues across the US. He asked me to wait inside the door, open it for the next arrival, who would in turn open it for the next, and so on, forming a chain of cautious vigilance. Each week, my heart breaks a bit more as I assume this ongoing “guard post,” a relentless reminder of the ugliness even in this small corner of the world. And I think of the late Bishop Krister Stendahl’s A Note of Repentance, often quoted in our Good Friday service leaflet:

“As we gather beneath the Cross of Jesus, we should perhaps also be aware how, among Jews and Muslims, this our most holy sign evoked and still evokes memories of the murderous Christian Crusades. And in not too distant times it was actually during Holy Week that the Jews suffered the worst pogroms. Somehow, it was the story of Christ’s Passion that gave Christians the biblical sanction for acting out in heinous ways that contempt for the Jews which has marked and marred so much of Christian teaching and preaching. Even today images linger in our minds of the high priests–not to mention Judas–as looking much more Jewish than Jesus. How can that be? Were they not all Jews? Such simple questions should make us resolve to purge our Good Friday worshihp of all its potential contempt for Jews and Judaism. We do so in a mood of repentance, shamefully aware of how our story of reconciliation often was turned into its very opposite. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.”

Nancy Torti